1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a disk drive and, more particularly, to a dust removing apparatus for removing dust from the surface of a disk as a recording medium, driven by the a disk drive.
2. Related Art
A hard disc drive, as a disk recording/reproducing apparatus, reproduces predetermined data recorded on a disk using a magnetic head, or records new data on the disk, thereby contributing to the operation of a computer system. The density of such a hard disk drive increases in the rotating direction of the disk, as measured in bits per inch (BPI), and in the thickness direction thereof, as measured in tracks per inch (TPI). Moreover, the aforementioned densities increase as the capacity and density of the hard disk drive increases and as the hard disk drive becomes smaller in size. Accordingly, a more accurate and rapid method for controlling the position of a head, and an elaborate mechanism are required.
In a general magnetic head constituting a hard disk drive, a magnetic field is formed around a conductor when a current flows through a coil wound around the conductor, and the direction and intensity of the magnetic field are determined by the direction and magnitude of the current. The magnetic head forms a minute gap in a ring-shaped conductor (core), and, when the core is wound by a coil and current flows into the coil, a strong leakage magnetic flux is generated around the gap. The leakage magnetic flux changes the direction of the magnetic particles of a recording medium into a predetermined direction according to the direction of the current, and this is called xe2x80x9cwritingxe2x80x9d. Conversely, a process in which a magnetically recorded signal is induced as an electrical signal is called xe2x80x9creadingxe2x80x9d.
These are basic characteristics of a magnetic head, and magnetic heads are classified into various types according to the recording method and the properties of the magnetic head material.
The recording method is roughly divided into horizontal writing on a magnetic disk and vertical writing thereon. Generally, a hard disk drive uses the horizontal writing method in which a magnetic head reads from or writes to a rotating magnetic disk while being levitated a predetermined distance above the disk. The magnetic head is becoming miniaturized for high performance, high quality, and high density writing of information.
In particular, to increase the recording density of a disk recording/reproducing apparatus, the flying height (the interval between a head and a disk during driving) should be lowered as much as possible. Accordingly, a recent optical magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus and a magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus reduce the flying height of a head slider as much as possible by using a super-near, non-contact recording technique and a near contact recording technique, respectively.
However, when impurities infiltrate into the flying height area with the head slider having a lowered flying height, the head slider directly disperses the impurities. Therefore, the head trembles during recording/reproduction, thus making a tracking servo unstable, and having a fatal effect on the performance of the drive.
To solve the above problems, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a dust removing apparatus associated with a disk drive for removing dust on a recording medium using an atmospheric stream due to a difference in pressure, and using an electrostatic force.
Accordingly, to achieve the above objective, there is provided a dust removing apparatus for a disk drive including ahead slider, the apparatus comprising: an AC-to-DC high voltage conversion transducer for ionizing impurities on the disk; and a conductive plate for collecting ionized impurities using the AC-to-DC high voltage conversion transducer.
It is preferable that a wire connected to the AC-to-DC high voltage conversion transducer be installed on a leading edge, and that the conductive plate be loaded on a trailing edge.
Preferably, air enters via the leading edge during rotation of the disk, and entered air flows out via the trailing edge.